'020 | CMP_gyroTone
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Lead Designer; Project Duration: 1 month
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Interactive gestural wearable exploration between hand movement and sound.
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Entitled as “CMP_gyroTone,” the computing wearable project took form as a gestural musical instrument. Project goal is set to unfold discussion upon augmented wearable technology for humans in physical space through the lens of non-contact interaction.
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As a first-generation prototype, gyroTone demonstrates extensive potential toward various applications ranging from medical rehabilitation tools, next-gen game controllers to VR prototyping tools.
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Brooklyn, USA / 2020 spring
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[initializing]
Project gyroTone is a wearable experiment referencing the elegant hand movement from orchestra conductors. Seamless motion informing the accurate timing for multiple sections illustrates the expressive nature of the human body.
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What will future musical instruments be like?
What represents a mark revolutionizing the way we play music?
Which medium is capable of facilitating the “movement - pitches” transferral process?
[paper mock-up]
unfolding
superposing
[working mechanism]
The operating principles are developed through pairing hand motion with music rhythm. The spatial directions of the hand and its rotation angle from the XYZ axis are mapped into matrix, translated into a new set of numerical data that direct a specific frequency and duration.
Embodied as a gestural musical instrument, gyroTone is composed of four components: orange vinyl exterior (mono-material), Arduino Board, buzzer and accelerometer. Working mechanisms within each note and duration are formed by the delta rotation speed from spatial axis respectively, thus diverse pitches are generated as the hand is waving or performing in the air.
In short, the angular acceleration changing upon time is the key bridging the “motion to frequency” transformation.
The project was initiated from reimagining how humans and music interact without touch motion on physical or virtual instruments. Identifying the key parameters of hand movement, such as finger motion and wrist motion sets the scene for the electronic circuit enclosure design. The visual language of gyroTone references the facades from Centre Pompidou that highlights structural layers and transparency.
[views]
Once the Arduino sensor captures the relative position at given time intervals, gyroTone can be played without physical contact after being held in hand; thus, the way of playing activity can be distinguished from most existing musical instruments.
Hovering the hand in rhythm with the gyroTone, then melody created in the air opens new dialogue between human-computer interaction and musical instrument digital interface (MIDI).
[project demo]
The core discovery of gyroTone project in the first user testing (during FA’20 in-person class at Pratt Institute, “Responsive Objects and Environments”) is the positive feedback on “gesture to sound” interaction, as the users may expect the sounds to be the indicators of more complicated tasks.
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Instead of simply being a data-driven buzzer, main functionality of gyroTone should morph into prototyping tools for complex narrative in AR/VR platforms where, the yet to come user experiences are no longer confined to physical screens. The next step of the gyroTone project aims to become a product customization tool in the footwear online retail process.
